Is there a relationship between the worlds of AC?

[Chupon]

This has always bothered me, not knowing is there is a relationship here (other than the portal networks)

What I mean is, are these planets supposed to exist in the same universe, galaxy, solar system? Or maybe different dimensions/universes ala Sliders (TV show)

None of the races are advanced enough to have space flight or even highly developed observational tools. So I'm wondering if all these planets exist in the same general location and they just don't know it. Is there any evidence that supports or destroys this notion? The only common theme I can find is they all have one star.

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Also was wondering if this info checks out.

Ezheret orbits a larger planet (Hazahtu) and has one star.

Tuu has no moons and has a star for only half the year. Their winter is illuminated by "The Forge of Heaven" which is a large nebula.

Bur has one star and perhaps many "moons" based on the recent lore.

Ispar has one star as well, but I can't find information on any moons, if it has any. Anyone know?

Auberean we know has 2 moons and one star.

The Olthoi/Grievver homeworld has one sun but no reports of any moons.

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Any other info/speculation would be wonderful. I have next to no knowledge of AC2 lore, so if anything was revealed there it's all new to me :)

[Orion]

Wow, this is an involved question.

The AC universe is indeed inter-related. All of the worlds exist in the same plane of existence. There is a great big universe. That universe is made smaller by the existence of portal space.

For lack of a better description portal space is akin to another plane of existence. One in which time, space, volume, weight, size, height and matter lose all relevance. They simply exist as energy. In portal space, if you know how to navigate the streams of energy that exist there you can go to any other location in the universe.

The statements that you make about the other known worlds are correct.

There is much of AC that is a mystery so I can't go on to tell you everything. What I can say is this.

There are no worlds that are more advanced or were more advanced than Auberean at the height of its existence.

[CountOrkin]

Does this mean we're going to bust in to a temple even older than the Empyrean and find lazers and jet packs?

[Orion]

Umm... not that I can forsee in the future.

[Chupon]

Thanks for the info Orion :)

[Fiction_LC]

Earth was. We come in in the next expansion.

[CountOrkin]

OMG Orion! Please tell me AC is like planet of the apes and we find out Auberan is actually Earth by finding a half buried Statue of Liberty on Dereth surrounded by Tuskers ;)

[kclobo2003]

that would be funny as all get out... :D :eek:

[Renegade Knight]

This brings me to a question? Are the Virindi beings of pure energy?

As for the other "planes of existance theory" I roleplay a character who see's visions of another plane, a higher plane. He's trying to build a gateway to the other plane through use of portal space, and some ancient books...so far...its going well...

[Eddie the Crazy]

This brings me to a question? Are the Virindi beings of pure energy?

As for the other "planes of existance theory" I roleplay a character who see's visions of another plane, a higher plane. He's trying to build a gateway to the other plane through use of portal space, and some ancient books...so far...its going well...


Essentially, I think they are.

[Cerulia]

I think the Virindi's native form is pure energy and they live in portal space itself, but when they come to Dereth or leave portal space at all, their energy somehow crystallises in some way to a tentacled form which they hide behind cloaks and masks. It's about the only way I can think of to reconcile the different descriptions of them...

So I would say that yes, the virindi are pure energy, but when they're in the physical world it's *solid* pure energy. This would also partly explain why being on Dereth was so confusing to them and caused individual personalities to arise, because not only have they never had individual thought before, they've never even had an individual body before.

That's just my theory anyway ^_^

And thank you for your replies Orion! Going to miss those... : \

[pokute]

hehe, go cerulia

the ac world is actually quite scientific for a fantasy rpg
i remember when stormy (i think) was asking us physics geeks to explain singularities to him :p

i always imagined the virindi as a race of semi-sentient energy beings created for the purpose of maintaining an interstellar portal network.

created by whom, you ask? only time will answer that one ;)
(hint hint, it has something to do with the gromnatrosses, jk :p)

[Christineeve]

Wow, this is an involved question.

The AC universe is indeed inter-related. All of the worlds exist in the same plane of existence. There is a great big universe. That universe is made smaller by the existence of portal space.

For lack of a better description portal space is akin to another plane of existence. One in which time, space, volume, weight, size, height and matter lose all relevance. They simply exist as energy. In portal space, if you know how to navigate the streams of energy that exist there you can go to any other location in the universe.

The statements that you make about the other known worlds are correct.

There is much of AC that is a mystery so I can't go on to tell you everything. What I can say is this.

There are no worlds that are more advanced or were more advanced than Auberean at the height of its existence.

I've read some theororists believe that time is not linear, but infact, a big circle that resembles the infinity sign. Which I'm sure everyone here has also heard. As well as this idea being supported in various fiction, non-fiction books, stories, movies, etc.

So, I was going to say, "Gee, I thought AC2 picked up so many years after AC1." But, reading these interesting posts, it's possible to think of AC1 and AC 2 in the terms of non-linear time, time looping through itself at some point.

The individual that brought up the point of portaling to a place where jetpacks and laser guns appear is an interesting idea...maybe it is possible to portal into a period of time in the "future" of AC to get some cool thing or some sort of special insight on a quest?!

[Cerulia]

Wow, now THERE is an interesting thought... if portalspace exists outside of our space and time, why not a portal to another time? Just because we've never heard of one doesn't mean they couldn't exist... Imagine going back in time to when the olthoi had us as slaves and helping Elysa and Cragstone kill the first queen ^_^

Or forward to some location from AC2...

I really hope a dev is reading this and sees that idea Christineeve ^_^

[Christineeve]

I really hope a dev is reading this and sees that idea Christineeve ^_^

Hi, thank you for your nice reply! :)

[Renegade Knight]

Its not gonna happen, if we go back in time using portal space, unless we go to another existance, we could alter our present, therfore, it wouldn't work out to well, a example would be if we went back and stopped the emyprean empire from falling to the olthoi.

[Cerulia]

lol, well, at the risk of turning this into a time travel theory thread... I guess that depends on how you believe time travel would work ^_^

Personally, I believe it would be possible to travel in time, but not to change the past... In other words, if we travelled back in time to help Elysa and Cragstone kill the queen, then we had already done that. It's a part of history, if we looked at a list of names of who killed the queen we would already be on it, even before we had gone through the time portal...

But anyway, that's really just a physics objection rather than a game objection ^_~

I agree that it probably won't happen, but I think it'd be really cool if it did ^_^

[Christineeve]

The book Timeline has an interesting theory about traveling back to a version of the past. The movie Timeline is HORRIBLE. If you like the subject, there are some neat ideas about it and could be incorrporated into a quest in AC.

I would love it...wouldn't it be great to pop back in time and fight Olthoi along with Elyssa?

Have a great day!

[Nocturne]

Ahh, cool, so it's like mini-gates from Stargate.


FA: Minigun, 19999% Modifier, -30% Melee Defense weapon. Uses special alchemized exploding rounds. :)

[Renegade Knight]

...No, I want a death glider...lol

[Cerulia]

lol, I really don't get the whole stargate comparison... I mean, the ones with portals in them look a little like stargates in that they're round rings with a portal, but... Maybe I just don't get it ^_~

[Protes]

I kind of think of Bur as being a little bit different from the other worlds (Ispar, Ezheret, Tuu, etc). Bur to me seems more like a plain of existance the Old Ones created and were able to watch from afar on Auberean.
The portals that have been found within the Falatacot Temples appear to be portals from Bur, rather then portals to Bur. Also, the activation of the portals of Bur require blood or a sacrifice to be opened. I guess maybe the Dark Sisters magics that sealed portals may have changed the process of activating the portals of Bur, but I do get a feeling when reading the lore surrounding the Falatacots travels to Bur they needed a sacrifice to open the portals. So this form of portal magics seems much different from Asheron and others use of planar magics.

I also get the feeling that the "Eye" that has been referenced in many of the ancient texts about Bur is like a portal well (like an all seeing crystal ball or something) in which the Old Ones and/or Falatacots could view Bur from Auberean.

But just recently I thought of an idea of Bur being an alternate universe of Auberean, which an Old One created. If I am not mistaken both worlds have 1 sun and 2 moons. The 3 Burun races also seem to know where all the Falatacot temples are on Auberean, they appear to easily find the locations of these temples on Dereth. I like the concept of an alternate world of Auberean, but it would be hard to prove (even the idea of Bur being on another plain of existance is hard to prove). However, I do find it ironic Asheron and Torgluuk have a lot of things in common.

[Cerulia]

Well, remember that the portals are made by the falatacot blood magic, rather than the empyrean's more familiar magic... That alone could explain why they're so different...

I'm 95% sure that the 'Eye' mentioned is the sun of Bur...

I guess it's possible Bur's an alternate Auberean, but I think I'd need to see a lot more evidence for it, I just don't see any reason to think that yet really...

[Protes]

Yeah I understand the Eye could very well be the sun of Bur, but there's also some bit of text talking about the Eye opening and closing. I suppose it could be solar eclipses, though it seems the Eye opens or closes for long periods of time. I guess maybe some kind arrangement of Bur's solar system, orbit, or whatever may naturally cause it. But the word Eye seems to be used as a symbol used to describe a few other things besides the sun; at least from what I remember it seems to represent more than it.

I do also realize Falatacot Blood magics in planar magics, well in the case the portals made in the Dark Sister Temples, is different from Yalain planar magics. But it's the difference between the two which intrigues me. The portal devices are coils, and unlike the Yalain, the High Falatacot Priestesses created portals to other worlds by creating and using these devices. As far as I know, Asheron's travels to the Olthoi Homeworld, Ezheret, and Ispar did not require to summon portals in this fashion. And the portals within the temples and portals of Bur are dark and misty, unlike the swirling portals we usually see. Also, there is the need of blood to use the portals.

The other Falatacot portals that exist on Dereth are not like this, The Floating City, Sclavus Temple, and Ancient Temple are a few examples.

In one of Asheron's journals, Theories of Ezheret, there is an entry which may suggest the Falatacot had at one time visited the world of Ezheret long before the Yalain.

Perhaps the most interesting of these species were the Tonk, the good-natured creatures that pierced the illusions and fell to their knees in worship of us, promptly corrected. These peoples appeared to have seen us before, several of their structures appeared to be influenced by the architecture once prominent on Ireth Lassel, though certainly more crude and rudimentary.

It's because there is the difference between the average planar magics and those found only within the Dark Sister Temples that I started of thinking of different possiblities as to why this might be. Also, the first monthly event for the story arc is called Across the Vast Divide (though I believe The Madness of Men is the intro to it) and there's a lore story called The Shattered Coil. These two titles kind of made me think about an alternate world type scenario.

Clearly there could be nothing more to it, but I think a scenario like this would be interesting in AC and I could see it kind of fitting to the Burun/Falatacot story arc. I've played RPG games a long time ago on SNES and PS that had an alternate world, and most of the time in those games there was dark magics somehow involved in the process of creating the alternate world or in some way connected to it.

[Cerulia]

"The other Falatacot portals that exist on Dereth are not like this, The Floating City, Sclavus Temple, and Ancient Temple are a few examples."

That's an excellent point, that hadn't occured to me at all (Although I thought the Floating City was yalaini?). It's a good question, why would the other portals be just like any normal portal, but only those ones would be different... The only reason I can think of is that they're interplanetary, and we've never seen an interplanetary portal anywhere else (Well, the portal to Ispar on Gaerlan's citadel, but that was only visable in a teaser video...)

I think the Eye's opening and closing refers to periods of darkness caused by ash filling the sky... I seem to remember a mention of one of Bur's moons breaking up and crashing into the world, or it might have been meteors, I can't quite remember at the moment... It's part of the Reports to Niarltah series anyway ^_^

The Eye does seem to represent other things as well (Asheron is prophesised as the 'Eye for all worlds'), but I don't think that means the Eye isn't the sun... It's just that the sun is seen as the eye of a god, which means that in the religion and mythology the eye could be other places or represent other things too... It's not that the sun itself is literally somewhere else, it's just that the god who the eye belongs to is ^_~

Not sure really about what you mean by the mention of Ezheret... If anything I would've thought the Faltacot's travels to other worlds than Bur would be a point against the alternate world theory. Could you maybe explain more?

I do think an alternate world would be very cool, and I'd love to see something like that done in AC, but I just don't think Bur is it... I mean, there's not really anything about the world which is similar to Auberean at all is there?



Edit: Something else just occured to me, while I was thinking about the differences between Yalaini and Falatacot magic, that might explain why the portals are so different...

The Yalaini draw their magic from mana. It always comes back, and they're not really physically weakened by it. Summoning a portal to another world for them would just be like Summon Portal XXI for us... It'd take a lot of mana, but it's something they could do often.

But the Falatacot draw their magic from blood and sacrifice. If they just created a new portal every time, they'd run out of sacrifices sooner or later! Hence the portal devices; They took a large sacrifice to set up (There was a description of the ritual somewhere or other), but once they were set up they only take a small sacrifice, the blood it took from Rage Lao to start up the portal again didn't even kill him. Maybe that's the reason for the huge complicated devices, they somehow let the portals be easily reestablished without needing several sacrifices.

[pokute]

Just a couple of vague points I wanted to toss out there...

1. Imagine a race so advanced that they'd woven themselves into the fabric of space-time, which would have made them akin to gods if not for their untimely destruction. By the virtue of their former existence, their remains are always with us.

2. Time being linear is a purely human concept. And no, this is not a question of philosophy. Time is a unit that we've defined to measure change (or lack there of). Change does not equal time, and vice versa. Physics really begin to make a lot more sense once you get past the common-sense of time.

[Christineeve]

Just a couple of vague points I wanted to toss out there...

1. Imagine a race so advanced that they'd woven themselves into the fabric of space-time, which would have made them akin to gods if not for their untimely destruction. By the virtue of their former existence, their remains are always with us.

2. Time being linear is a purely human concept. And no, this is not a question of philosophy. Time is a unit that we've defined to measure change (or lack there of). Change does not equal time, and vice versa. Physics really begin to make a lot more sense once you get past the common-sense of time.

I completely agree. I've pondered similar things from my various studies. I like how you stated these points very clearly. I too to not believe time is linear. My favorite saying, I got from a friend who studies this subject is, "There's no such thing as time." :) I try to tell my boss that and he suggests that there maybe no such thing as my job.

Anyway, wouldn't it be cool to weave (to use your word) this concept into traveling back to fight along side Elyssa(sp)....Well, just wondering. There is much that could be done with this concept.

[Renegade Knight]

The more I read this thread the more it sounds like Stargate...

1. Imagine a race so advanced that they'd woven themselves into the fabric of space-time, which would have made them akin to gods if not for their untimely destruction. By the virtue of their former existence, their remains are always with us.

Can we spell The Ancients? The race who lived millions of years ago, only to ascend to a higher plane of existance in which they existed as pure energy and had god like powers? To me this whole story arc seems like its based off Stargate, or the Star-God novels written so long ago.

[pokute]

the idea of an ascended master race is nothing new
it was written into ac when it first started

neither was it an innovative one when it was written
not for ac, not for stargate, or any other sci-fi icons that exist today

the idea of an omnipotent race is almost as old as the idea of extra-terrestrials (how can you resist god += aliens?). i believe that there're even ancient native american and meso-america religions that preach exactly this form of creationism.

the reason why you keep referring to stargate is because the story of stargate is designed to be open ended, just like ac's was designed to allow for expansibility. when you have to create an open ended backstory, there are common themes that you almost have to follow, and using a master race as the zero-frame reference for sentience is a very popular one.

the assumption that writers always make (because it's the reality) is that the human race is lazy, so things like exploration and innovation would be done only when there is a popular need to. With this in mind, it's almost impossible for a pre-industrialized society to want to get off their planet, because there simply isn't a need to. thus, the only way they could get off their puny little rock to do off-world exploration is if they "discover" a relic interstellar transportation system.

coming back to reality for a second, even today, our society is only beginning to plan for off-world travels to the NEAREST planets in our own solar system, so to many logical writers, the backstory we have in ac is one of the great ways of setting things up for interworld conflict.

anyways, the ideas and methods of myth/legend/storytelling are not limited to the sci-fi genre, so before you make this kind of comparison, i would encourage you to acquire both a more diverse and in-depth reading field.

[Cerulia]

I honestly don't see this storyarc as having much relation to stargate...

The only real connection is the Falatacot are a race of beings who posed as gods to a more primitive species, which is kind of similar to the Goa'uld... But that's a pretty broad connection to say that something's based on something.

I really think no one would even have mentioned it if the portal devices didn't look vaguely like stargates... And even then that's just because they're round with a portal in the middle!